Something pulls at Tato’s head.
“Owww!” He cries. “That hurts! That hurts!”
With a small pop, Tato is out of the earth. The sun’s rays are very, very harsh. “Owww!” He cries. “Too bright, too bright!” He has spent his whole life in the soft, warm, dark soil.
He is thrown into a basket. There are other potatoes all around him, and he feels scared and excited all at once. Scared, because he is being taken somewhere he has never been to. Excited, because he can’t wait to try out new things! The basket sways from side to side. Soon, he feels himself get thrown again, and then he is at the top of a huge heap of potatoes in a dim room. It feels so good to see potatoes like him. Tato turns to the potato next to him. He is smaller, and his eyes are squeezed shut.
“Hello, friend,” Tato says to him. “You can open your eyes.”
“The light will blind my eyes,” the smaller potato says.
“No, it will not,” Tato says. “My own eyes are open.”
Slowly, the other potato opens his eyes and looks around. “Where are we?” He asks.
“I have no idea,” Tato says. “My name is Tato.”
“And I am Po,” the other potato says. “Why do you think we’re here?”
“To get eaten,” they suddenly hear. The potatoes around them gasp. “Out of my way! Out of my way!” The voice says. A potato even smaller than Po pushes past other potatoes until Tato and Po see him. “That is the purpose of a potato,” he says. “My name is Otat.”
Tato laughs. “That can’t be right. I cannot exist just to get eaten. I am much more than that.”
Otat laughs unkindly. “You’ll see soon enough,” he says.
The talk of getting eaten makes the rest of the potatoes scared. The door opens and two children come in. One of them picks up a potato. The potato screams.
“Quiet!” Otat says. “What is meant to happen will happen.”
The child takes a bite out of the potato’s head.
The rest of the potatoes scream.
“Stop it, Buki!” the bigger child says. “Wait till Mama cooks them!”
“Oh, I can’t,” Buki says, rubbing his belly. “I’m very hungry!” A bigger human appears and shoos the children away. She selects many potatoes and puts them in her big basket. She sees the potato that Buki took a bite out of. She hisses, picks him up, and throws him through the window.
The other potatoes panic. Well, except Otat. “I told you,” he says, his eyes shining. “A potato lives to be eaten. Boiled in hot water, or fried in hot oil, or baked in an oven.”
“How can you just say things like that?” Tato says. “I can’t live just to be eaten. I have to get away.” He turns to Po. “We can’t just stay here and wait to be eaten. Come with me.”
“I’m sorry,” Po says. “I can’t. I’m too scared.”
“We’ll have each other,” Tato says. “Whatever is out there is better than being eaten.”
Po turns away. “I’m sorry, Tato,” he says.
Otat sneers at Tato. “You are not a human. You do not have long, strong legs. How will you get away from here?”
“I’m a potato,” Tato replies. “I roll.”
“You?” Otat says with an unkind laugh. “You’re too heavy to roll. Look how fat you are.”
“Watch me,” Tato says. He takes a deep breath, and then moves his body. Soon, he is rolling down the heap of potatoes. He stops at the door. The other potatoes tell him not to go, but he does not listen to them. He rolls out of the door, and stares at all the space in front of him.
It is huge. A rolling potato could easily get lost in it. For a moment, he feels scared.
But then he rolls and rolls and rolls until he comes to a river.
He has no idea how to cross it.
“Hey, look, a potato!” Tato suddenly hears. Before he can roll away, someone picks him up, hisses, and throws him away. He lands in a canoe with a huge thud. The man rowing the canoe looks around, but does not see Tato. He rows the canoe to the other side of the river and stops at the riverbank. Tato rolls off the canoe, rolls and rolls and rolls, until he comes to a house.
Before he knows what’s happening, a child picks him up. She goes to a corner, turns on a tap, and holds Tato under it. Tato sputters and coughs.
“Dirty Potato!” The child says. “Dirty potato!”
She then ties a bright blue bow on Tato’s head. She pats him and says, “Sleep, baby potato, sleep!” Her mother comes into the room. “Mina, what is this?” she says. She takes the bow off Tato’s head and throws him in the wastebin. It is too high to roll out of. Other things get thrown on top of him, and he could hardly see. He closes his eyes in sadness.
When Tato opens his eyes, he is underneath a huge trash heap. He wriggles his way to the top, and looks at the sky. He has no idea where he is. He rolls to the foot of the heap. He is suddenly picked up by the dirtiest man he has ever seen, with the worst breath he has ever smelled.
“Hey,” the man says, “someone threw a perfectly good potato away. My lucky day.”
Tato remembers how that potato back at the farm ended up. He pushes with all his strength. He falls to the ground and rolls away like his life depends on it- and it does!
The man pursues him, but Tato is faster.
He rolls and rolls. He sees several sunrises and sunsets. He nearly gets eaten several times. He gets into a lot of sticky situations. But he manages to escape from all of them.
One day, he discovers that he can no longer roll. Once a big, fat potato, he is now old and shriveled. His skin is dry and spotty. His eyes have grown very, very dim.
But he smiles.
He has gone places and seen things that many potatoes have not. He has travelled even more than some humans with their long, strong legs.
I told Otat I could not live just to be eaten, he thinks to himself. And I was right.
This Children’s Story emerged as the winner of the 2023 Wakini Kuria Prize for Children’s Literature
